A Crude Threat: The Limits of an Iranian Missile Campaign against Saudi Arabian Oil

Abstract

The United States and its Persian Gulf allies have been increasingly concerned with the growing size and complexity of Iran's ballistic missile programs. At a time when the United States and its allies remain locked in a standoff with Iran over the latter's nuclear program, states around the Persian Gulf fear that Iran would retaliate for an attack on its nuclear program by launching missiles at regional oil installations and other strategic targets. An examination of the threat posed by Iran's missiles to Saudi Arabian oil installations, based on an assessment of Iran's missile capabilities, a detailed analysis of Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure, and a simulated missile campaign against the network using known Iranian weapons, finds no evidence of a significant Iranian missile threat to Saudi infrastructure. These findings cast doubt on one aspect of the Iranian threat to Persian Gulf oil while offering an analytic framework for understanding developments in the Iranian missile arsenal and the vulnerability of oil infrastructure to conventional attack.

The Oil Wars Myth

“…Colgan labels this the "resource war" pathway, Charles Glaser calls these conflicts "classic resource wars," and Georg Strüver and Tim Wegenast identify them as "classical resource wars." 16 Indra de Soysa, Erik Gartzke, and Tove Grete Lie assess the related "blood oil" hypothesis, which proposes that "petroleum is a prize over which nations will fight." 17 I use the term classic oil wars to synthesize these concepts.…”

“…15 Kerosene subsequently replaced whale oil and camphene as consumers' favored illuminant, boosting petroleum production. 16 The second, more significant innovation was the development of the internal combustion engine, which ran on oil-based fuels. As the popularity of automotive transportation surged, gasoline transformed from a waste product, sold for cents on the barrel, into oil's most significant derivative.…”

“…Hence, groups "fought with a desperate courage, inspired by the reflection that death was the punishment of defeat and life the prize of victory." 16 In the aftermath of these existential battles, the victors' food needs would be temporarily sated. However, Malthus observed grimly, there was no escaping a law of nature.…”

A Joint Army for the Arabian Gulf

“…An Iranian precision strike Perceptions of Saudi heavy-handedness create tensions within the GCC againstc riticali nfrastructurei nt he Gulf States remainsas ignificant threatf or those regimes.ArepresentativeofSaudi King Abdullah said in December2 006 thatt he monarch 'worries morea bout an Iranian missile launch againstS audi oil facilities than at errorist attack … because he cantakepreventive measures againstterrorism butnot againstIranian missiles'. 44 In the wake of the Arab upheavals, and withI ranian-Western relations apparently thawing,i ti sp erhaps not surprising thatS audi Arabia'ss tate ministerfor foreign affairs, Nizar Madani, speaking at the GCC's 34 th annual meeting in December 2013, declared thatt he further integration of the GCC was' no longer al uxury, but as trategic necessity'. 45 However, the Saudi initiative to turn the GCC into au nion -t he Riyadh Declaration 46 -c ontinues to face resistance, principally from Oman, aGCC member whose ambivalence is coloured by its close relations withI ran.…”

Impact of Cyber Attack on Saudi Aramco

“…Washington and Riyadh have always been focused on protecting operations of the oil and gas industry in Saudi Arabia from physical damages over a decade. Even a small disruption of manufacturing units in Eastern Province or any such area would affect oil prices and supplies immediately, followed by knock-on impact for the international economy [5]. After a failed terror attack on the petroleum processing unit in February 2006 at Abqaiq, there have been rising concerns over security at the facilities in Aramco.…”